Wow, a Wii!

My search for a Wii came to a sudden hiatus a few weeks ago after I'd gotten tired of showing up at 7am at Fred Meyer's stores for a month with no joy. I did make an attempt to score one at Toys R Us in mid-March, only to be, literally, number 38 in line that gave out 37 Wiis. At that point, I made a decision not to buy one until I could walk into a store at any time of the week and just get one then. Fortunately, the supply constrictions seem to have lessened, as I'm seeing lots of controllers, even nunchucks, at all sorts of stores.

In fact, even the consoles must be coming out regularly, as Ben found six at the Tualatin Fred Meyer's early Sunday morning, which tells me that suddenly the pipe has opened up (Fred's takes deliveries on Fridays and Tuesdays, so that means they sat there all day Saturday). Still, it was darned nice of him to think of me, and I gratefully took the standard set, plus an extra remote/nunchuck pair off of his hands this past Sunday. Fortunately, I'd bought a couple of games plus neoprene sleeves a month or so before, so I had plenty to play with. Since then I've gotten a few more games, and I have to say that this is the only console gaming that's successfully pulled me away from World of Warcraft for more than an hour or so.

Of the games, I'm particularly taken with Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, which is just crazy but very fun. Most of the fun is not knowing what micro game will show up next, but the ersatz zen koans that tell you how to use the remote are a scream. Trauma Center seems interesting, although it's your typical Japanese muted sexual tension roleplay game, except instead of killing monsters you remove broken glass and stitch up lacerations. The Godfather is just crazy, think Grand Theft Auto in 30's Manhattan. You even get to buy clothes, decide on a hairstyle, and initially have a fairly good amount of control over your character's personal appearance (nose, monobrow, etc). Of course, I'm also enjoying Wii Sports, which has been my sole source of exercise for the past week. I'm getting in 30-45 minutes a day, mostly baseball, tennis, and boxing. I've gotten my fitness age down to 38, but I'm really having trouble figuring out how to swing a golf club well.

But enough of the Wii, on to WoW. Have I mentioned I really enjoy this game? Enough that I now have *five* characters playing, although two are intended to be "bankers" and alternate goods producers. Unfortunately, they are all on different servers, so that's why so many. Had they all been on a single server, I'd almost certainly only have three at most. The good news is that the alt characters come up *very* quickly at this point, even for classes I've not played before. My Tauren hunter got to sixth level and out of the newb area in Mulgore in less than 90 minutes, and I figure I'll work on a few more levels to allow him to go after more leather goods (for my shaman on the same server), then he'll primarily become a banker to save travelling back and forth to the big city for Chanya.

My primary character, my rogue gnome HVAC engineer, has gotten to level 28, scampering back and forth from the Wetlands to Duskwood to Redridge, even up to Hillsfar. All with no instances played, I've only done that with Chanya and Ragefire Chasm (with Matt, Jen, and Jen's brother). I'm tempted to run the Deadmines just to see how it goes, perhaps solo, perhaps in a team. I know it can be done at 32nd level, and the fact that the gnome can vanish makes it much easier to get the things done you need to instead of having to clear everything out. Still, I need to get more health potions, but that's what the human warlock is for on that server. I'm not quite sure where things will go from here with the gnome, who is my favorite character just because he's this teeny little guy running around in the weeks, occasionally coming up behind a critter that's taking on someone that can't quite handle it and pulling the old ambush trick. Good fun. I just wish I didn't have to run from area to area just to get quests that are within my range of expertise so much. Maybe I'll hop on a ship and head for Kalimdor, although I suspect Loraedon will be cool too.

So that's my video gaming update. Gotta go, a mob just aggro'ed me....